Thursday, November 03, 2016

Helping

A yeshiva student came up to me when I was helping at the tefillin stand. He said that his year of learning in Jerusalem was over and he was going back to the States to continue his studies. He asked what he could do to improve his learning.

I told him, "If you will help other Jews come to Torah and mitzvahs with joy your learning will increase."

He gave a very common response. "When I have learned enough, then I can help others."

"How many letters of the aleph bet do you have to know in order to teach the aleph?"

He wasn't convinced.

Just then, a few young American boys walked by and I tried to bring them in to put on tefillin. They refused. I shook one of the boy's arm up and down maybe ten times and said "Come, come put on tefillin. You didn't come here just to look at the stones."

"I can't, I only have three minutes before we have to leave."

"It will take only one minute. Come I will help you."

I pulled and they let me help them to put on tefillin. They read the Shema and prayed for their families and loved ones. I asked them what they were doing in Israel. They said that they came to volunteer in the Israeli Army for a year.

"What a wonderful thing to do! Thank you for helping to defend us."

They loved my response. Then I turned to the religious boy who thought that he had to learn more before he could help others, "Look what these boys are doing. They gave up a life where they could go run around chasing whatever they wanted to come and risk their lives to help the Jewish people…" Then I raised my voice, "and you think that you can't help another Jew to do a mitzvah because you don't know enough!!!"

The three boys left and the religious boy asked me to give him a blessing. I said, "Whenever you want something that you do not have, look around and see if someone else needs that thing too, and if you will pray for him to get what he needs, Hashem will give you what you need too. And learn this most important lesson…, there is no better way to pick yourself up spiritually or physically than to go pick up a fellow Jew. When you do that, you will see Hashem pick you up right away."